Katainen comes to Austria to promote EFSI

On Tuesday, 16 June 2015, European Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen came to Austria to meet with Vice-Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner in order to discuss the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI). Commissioner Johannes Hahn was also present at the meeting. Vice-Chancellor Mitterlehner expects Austria's economy to benefit from an economic recovery in Europe and would welcome a rapid and unbureaucratic implementation of the EFSI for this purpose. He called for more momentum along the entire innovation chain, including research and development, as well as structural reforms, in order to support growth and jobs. This would require deregulation, less bureaucracy and an attractive trade policy with other regions of the world, according to Mr. Mitterlehner.

Vice-President Katainen also met Members of the Austrian Parliament to discuss the EFSI. He stressed the importance of the EFSI promoting investments in Europe for Europe's competitiveness, warning against the gap in growth between the EU and its competitors in America and Asia.He also described the envisaged mechanisms for the implementation of the EFSI. Austrian MEPs mostly considered the EFSI as "interesting", even though some of them were sceptical towards a purely competitiveness-based logic and warned against the effects of strict austerity policies.